The only good Lawyer

‘preference,’ as they called sexual ‘orientation’ in those days.” Then the eyes hardened a bit, like wary animals turning angry behind the curved walls of a glass cage. “However, there was some obvious discomfort about how I’d ‘fit in’ with the other lawyers already there.”
    “Christmas parties and firm outings—”
    “—to concerns about loitering with innocent young secretaries in the ladies’ room.” Radachowski stopped. “But one interviewer was different. He looked down at my résumé, and instead of focusing on the gay/lesbian extracurricular stuff, he asked me what I wanted to do. And, given how little I knew then about how the legal system worked, I told him ‘become a...’ ” For the first time, Radachowski seemed to grope for her words. “ ‘A litigator, try jury cases.’ Well, the man indicated he thought I’d be good at it. That interviewer was—”
    “Uta,” said the voice of Patricia from the door. “I left those files and messages—oh, sorry, I didn’t know you…”
    “That’s all right,” said Radachowski.
    “Will you be needing me to do anything else?”
    “Not just now, Patricia.”
    I heard shoes along the carpet outside.
    Radachowski shook her head. “Temp,” she said to me, lightly. “Trying to do a good job, but a wee bit dense on matters of protocol.”
    “Not to mention stepping on your line.”
    The big-toothed smile. “As you’ve probably guessed, that man at my interview was Frank Neely. He got Leonard Epstein to swing with him, and the firm’s hiring committee made me an offer.”
    Hiring committee? “I thought they were the firm?”
    “I’m talking two stops ago.”
    “Then I don’t get what you mean.”
    Radachowski spread her large hands on the desk. “The old firm that hired me was... Well, never mind the name of the place. Let’s just call it A, B &; C.”
    “Okay.”
    “A, B & C thought it was quite something for them to have hired a lawyer named ‘Epstein’ or even ‘Neely’ thirty years before me, if you get my drift.”
    Meaning “restrictions” based on religion and ethnicity. “I understand.”
    “Well, A, B & C began to lose some of their best players as those attorneys realized they couldn’t change a partnership structure embedded in the nineteenth century. A number of the lawyers—including Frank and Len—broke off to form a new firm.”
    “But since you said ‘two stops ago,’ I take it that ‘new’ firm wasn’t this current one.”
    “Right.”
    I thought back to my one year of evening division law school. “Am I also right in thinking that A, B & C couldn’t impose a covenant not to compete on its former lawyers?”
    “You are. Violation of the Rules of Professional Responsibility, though I have to tell you, it’s just a guild protection rule.”
    “How so?”
    “If you’re an engineer or a sales manager, your employer can get you to sign a covenant, then get it enforced—reasonably as to geography, duration, and scope of services—if you try to go work for a competitor. You’re an attorney and your law firm tries that, it’s against public policy.”
    “Putting lawyers kind of above the law applied to the rest of us.”
    “Kind of. Anyway, let’s call the second firm D, E & E Frank and Len insisted as a condition of forming that firm that I be allowed to join it as a partner. There was still some resistance—you ever hear the term ‘CASP’?”
    “Casp?”
    “C-A-S-P.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “It stands for ‘Catholic Anglo-Saxon Protestant.’ ” The light dawned. “People who’ve been discriminated against themselves becoming—”
    “—that which they profess to despise the most. There were a few of them who wouldn’t hesitate to use the words ‘lezzie’ and ‘dyke’—or even ‘Polack,’ for that matter—when I wasn’t around. But Frank and Len wouldn’t stand for it.”
    “So?”
    “So after some years there, we three decided to split off as a matter of principle and form our own firm. Only this time it looked as though D, E & F might go under first.”
    “Why?”
    “Mostly mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world. Your client is the smaller fish, the law firm for the bigger fish eventually ends up handling all the combined fishes’ legal matters. Also, there were a lot of clients simply getting more cost-conscious regarding the legal fees they were being asked to pay.”
    I considered that. “But Epstein and Neely thought they could